The Acorn Before the Oak
by Klaelman
Summary: A quest of discovery, from the mind of Nymphadora Tonks, as she seeks answers to those questions that plague all who are trapped.


My parents met in school, sometime into their sixth year. Everyone knew my mother, a bright, ambitious scion of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. No one knew my father, a wiry, unobtrusive Hufflepuff. I'm not even sure how their romance began, but by the end of the year, Ted Tonks and Andromeda Black were madly in love—and people began noticing.

My mother, of course, being the perfect model of pureblood success—smart, beautiful, and as adept at magic from an early age as any amongst her peers—was allowed a modicum of choice as to her own relationships, rather than only being allowed into the circle of pre-approved friends her mother had carefully set up for my Aunt Bellatrix, and I still believe to this day that that independence is the only reason she survived the next summer. Between Aunt Bellatrix's Death Eater associations and mother's foolishly rampant mouth, courtesy of what she later jokingly called a 'traitorous coup of hormones and youthful righteousness,' mom had run afoul of her strict, pureblood-supremacist parents and increasingly fanatical sister.

At the first dinner back from school, with her mother, her father, and her two sisters, Bellatrix and Narcissa, the subject of associations within Hogwarts was quickly brought up. My grandparents had heard the rumors within their circle that inevitably pop up whenever one of their own begins 'fraternizing with the enemy,' as it were, and sought to quash those rumors before they gained too much momentum and destroyed their hopes for a decent pureblooded marriage for their middle daughter. My mother, foolish with romantic passion, had the audacity to throw away her Slytherin ways and take a rather gryffindorish approach—had she, no doubt it would have succeeded in buying her time that was otherwise spent under a hail of nasty curses and rather torturous accommodations, courtesy of her Death Eater sister and sympathizing parents. Instead of slithering her way around their inquiries, as a 'proper Slytherin' would, she roared her defiance to their views and proclaimed that she would associate with who she desired, and if her parents didn't approve, then they could take a long walk off a short pier.

I can't imagine why she had thought that a good idea, and when I asked her about it, she merely shrugged and said that it had sounded like a good idea at the time.

The proclamation had had its intended affect, as she had told me. It had froze her family, shocked her parents and infuriated her sisters. Bellatrix's rage-filled gaze burned holes right through mom, but mother met it with the cool, unflinching arrogance of her recently discovered Gryffindor side. Mother wasn't entirely lost to it, though, and kept herself ready to defend against anything her infuriated parents or maniacal sister would throw at her defiance. So, it was with as much shock as it was pain that she became the victim of her baby sister's--my Aunt Narcissa--very first Cruciatus curse, at the ripe old age of twelve years old. She lay there, writhing in agony and shrieking in horror as millions of tiny pins tore through her flesh in maddening pain for what seemed to be days, but was really only about 15 seconds. No matter; at the end, she was barely able to draw a gasping breath through bloody coughs as Aunt Bellatrix dragged her from the room, to a door hidden beneath glamours and wards to the dungeon-like basement of the old Black Manor.

She later told me that she didn't really remember what her family did to her, but I could see a glitter in her eyes that told me she remembered everything. Either way, she never said what it was that happened during that time, but after a month of no doubt ruthless torture and near-starvation (which I am fully able to imagine thanks to my current unfortunate circumstances, thank you), a bit of accidental magic allowed her the opportunity to drag herself out of the warded dungeon and to a place she could safely apparate from. She left it all—her family, her wealth, her books, robes and even her wand—not by choice, mind you, but necessity—and popped into place, a few feet from a door that summarily opened to the worried blue eyes of a brown-haired, bespeckled boy only a few inches taller. His gasp of surprise was the only thing she remembered as she fainted into his arms.

When she awoke, in the sunny, warm guest room of his parents' house, he was tending to the evidence of her torture with a silent calm and collectedness that immediately drove away her fear. Ted Tonks, my father, never said a word about what she had gone through to his folks—they didn't know the full truth of the war in the wizarding world, but seeing my mother gave them a full dose of reality. They adapted to the fear fairly well, but my dad once said that every time they looked at him, he could see a bit of fear in their eyes, for him, and also for the woman he loved.

Mom spent the rest of the summer in that room, recovering from the multitude of Crutiatus curses and other tortures she went through in the quiet peace of the Tonks residence. There, she fell further in love with my father, and before school started, she insisted that they get married—I silently attributed this to her strengthening Gryffindor traits, but she wanted them to know that they hadn't beat her. Rather foolish, really, but somehow, over the next year, she was only cursed twice, and her husband had been able to use his unobtrusive nature to avoid any number of dangerous plots and vengeful Slytherins. When they graduated, I had already been a few months along the way.

I was born in a muggle hospital in Swasea in southern Wales, and lived the first ten years of my life outside of Rhosneigr, only a few miles away from the nearby training grounds of the Holyhead Harpies. Dad got a job as an assistant manager with them, and would often take me with him as a little girl. The first few years of my life were blessedly free of the war; where we lived, there weren't any other wizarding families within a dozen miles, and my parents kept a low profile. After my parents were a year out of school, it was clear that Voldemort—the madman my Aunt Bellatrix swore allegiance to—wasn't just some terrorist that the Ministry would silence like so many before him, and as reports of more and more attacks by his Death Eaters filled the Daily Prophet, my parents got increasingly worried that they would be targeted. It turned out that it was only a matter of time before they found us.


End file.
